THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Photograph by E. K . De Witt
A STREET CROWD ON A RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY: PERSIA
This is not only an interesting study of Turko-Persian racial types, but also an enter
taining exhibition of Persian headgear so useful in identifying the residence and class of the
wearer, the rough felt dome of the peasant or artisan, the black pill-box of the merchant or
student, the skull cap of the porter, the white lamb's wool of the police officer, and the
cushion-like turban of the ecclesiastic in the right foreground being but a few among a strange
variety.
Fastidious, self-important Persian gentle
men of leisure, garbed in frock coat or
flowing mantle, saunter along, jostling
humbly dressed tradesmen or peasants,
and an occasional Westernized Armenian
family elbows through the crowd. But
the hurrying European intruder usually
takes to the street, where the faithful
modern police force has had better suc
cess in training the drosky drivers to
keep to the right than in regulating the
confusion on the sidewalks.
Persian women are conspicuous for
their absence, and if a few brazen ones
do appear they suggest nothing quite so
much as black shrouds tottering along on
high-heeled slippers; even their faces are
concealed by black horse-hair blinders.
The variety of architecture along this
avenue is more striking than its quality.
Modern shops, with show-windows dis-
playing actual European creations or
their ludicrous imitations, alternate with
junk-shops
and
second-hand
stores,
where every conceivable commodity can
be unearthed, all the way from rusty
opera hats to astronomical telescopes. It
is the accepted custom for homeward
bound foreigners to dispose of their dis
carded effects, at a profit, to these enter
prising traders; so it is not unusual to
see the familiar last season's wardrobe of
some legation-circle society leader dang
ling from a shop door as a ghostly re
minder of the departed, later, no doubt.
to adorn some brown-eyed harem beauty.
STREET LIFE SUGGESTS A TRAVELING
CARNIVAL
The precursors of the popcorn wagon
and the peanut-vender are there too. The
man pushing the red and yellow perambu-
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